_-_

Identifying when one has an alcohol problem is both simple and complicated. It is simple because alcohol is a problem if it causes a problem. It is complicated because there is no agreed upon criteria, making it rather like trying to determine which hair makes you bald.

The first need is to differentiate between a problem with alcohol and an alcoholic. The criteria for alcoholism are pretty clear. They involve a loss of control when drinking. That doesn’t necessarily mean that someone gets drunk. It may mean that someone went out for an hour for one beer and came back four hours later after 5.

It is also characterized by tolerance. That means it requires more alcohol to achieve the same effect. If someone regularly drank two glasses of wine after work to relax last year, and this year requires three or four to achieve the same effect, tolerance is increasing and that ought to be a warning that alcoholism is a likely outcome of continued drinking.

Withdrawal is another sign of alcoholism. Withdrawal is the response of the body to the absence of a drug to which it has become accustomed. Most people who drink coffee on a regular basis and for some reason stop abruptly will experience withdrawal, usually headaches and jitteriness, sometimes nausea. Withdrawal from alcohol can be as mild as a Sunday morning hangover, or as severe as life-threatening delirium tremens (DT’s).

Psychologically alcoholism is often accompanied by denial. The drinker denies what is perfectly obvious to everyone. Alcoholics often lie, but not about everything. They usually only lie about their drinking. And that isn’t always lying. When someone says I only had a few they may have really lost count after four or five.

Most neighborhood five-year-olds can identify the alcoholics on the block. It is no secret to anyone.

Alcoholism is considered by most to be a disease. That means it has a predictable course. Alcoholism does not respond to medications (at least at the present time) and tends to get worse with time and continued use of alcohol.

There are at least two types of alcoholism, one very different from the other. Type II alcoholism is also called high hereditability type. This is a type of alcoholism that runs in families. People with Type II alcoholism tend to start using alcohol and other substances at an early age. They often begin with cigarettes in elementary school. They also tend to have difficulty in school, sometimes trouble learning and often have behavioral problems. There is a strong connection between Type II alcoholism and Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADHD). People with this kind of genetic loading often are big risk takers, loving speed, daring activities and generally living on the edge. This type of alcoholism is much harder to treat than Type I, which is more situationally based.

Alcohol is an addicting drug, and most people can become addicted if they use enough over a long enough period of time.

Although we hear a great deal about alcoholism, studies suggest only about 10-12 % of adults in this country meet criteria for alcoholism. However, significantly more than that meet criteria as problems drinkers. In the late 1970′s a psychologist at the University of Rhode Island, Alan Willoughby PhD, suggested we would have better success at changing behaviors around alcohol use if we used different language and criteria. He began talking about the alcohol-troubled person. He defined the alcohol-troubled person as one whose quality of like was diminished through the use of alcohol in one of four major like areas: physical, financial, emotional or social. To this list I would add moral.

Prepared from a variety special minerals and organic compounds, foot pads are intended to work during the night for increasing your blood circulation, metabolism and also energy levels.